


Pale Jewel

by icarus_chained



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Fae & Fairies, First Kiss, Love, Magic, Old Age, Pain, Prompt Fic, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 23:04:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3399584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarus_chained/pseuds/icarus_chained
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He still finds her beautiful, as aged and frail and grey as she is. His Sarah. She's still as beautiful and cruel as she ever was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pale Jewel

There have been times when he's forgotten that mortals age. Not ... not generally, not the fact of it, but that it applies to those mortals he's _known_. He's glanced at them, from time to time, and found that years have gone by in a breath of air and those innocent youths he'd once known have become old and grey. It startles him, every time. That strange sensation of having forgotten something terrible, only to suddenly remember it again. The sensation of mortality by proxy, a mortal death to scar an immortal heart.

It jolts him now when he looks at her. His Sarah, so many years later, calling again to him at last. It strikes him like a shard of ice, and yet ... yet something is different. Something about her has not changed.

"You came," she says, with that coy half-smile of hers, an expression that the decades have apparently not destroyed. "I didn't think you would. I didn't know if you'd even remember me, oh Goblin King."

He stares at her. She's dressed herself for him. Or for the fantasy, perhaps. She's dressed herself in echo of something ... something so long ago, by her standards. A dress like that a young woman had once worn, silver and white, with paste diamonds in her greying hair. It doesn't look childish. Not at all.

"... I told you once," he says quietly. "I'll be there for you while the world falls down. It wasn't only a trap."

She laughs at him. There's something else in it. Tears, he thinks. Something bittersweet. He sees it then. The thing that's different. The thing that's still the same, that belies the age of her.

There's still cruelty in her eyes. He can see it. It's not quite what it was. It's no longer the innocent cruelty of a young girl's fantasy. It's older now, whetted by experience, made sharper and sadder and maybe more terrible for that. She looks at him, and there's still that shine in those clouded green depths. The silent accusation that had so enamoured him, once upon a time. It's for her as much as him, now. It's no longer quite so blind.

"I called you on a whim, you know," she says, watching him. "I called you for old time's sake. One last dream. I really didn't think you'd answer."

"... Oh, Sarah," he says, and moves to her. He flows into her space, midnight-dark against silver-grey, and lifts his hand to touch her cheek. It's papery, now. It's creased with age. Her eyes shine against it like peridot set in bone. "You should have called sooner. I'd have come. You never lost that power."

She leans into his hand. There's challenge in her now, beneath the self-knowing weariness of an old woman dressed in a young girl's clothes. There's will and strength and steel, that had once defied a king. It's stark against her fragility. Incredible, set against how ephemeral she's become.

"Too late, is it?" she asks snidely, with that wonderful cruelty of hers. "No more use for an ageing playmate, my king?"

He breathes, harsh against the seizing in his chest, a scarred heart clenching at the knowledge of her. Of something old and terrible and beautiful, frail beyond immortal reach, yet shining silver-bright beneath his hand. She's the most beautiful cruelty in all the world. Now, more than ever. Twice now she's moved beyond him, left him powerless behind her, unable to hold for the strength of her. It strikes his heart in two. In all his aeons, he's never known a love so cruel, nor one so unutterably perfect. 

"Will you never let me have you?" he asks softly, and she pauses in her cruelty to stare at him. "Will you always wait until I've lost the power to hold you? I cannot pass the bounds of death, Sarah. That is more than even you can ask. Could you not have called me sooner, and granted me more than just the end of your time?"

The pain sweeps through, as he says it. He watches it, sees the echo of it in her eyes, the realisation and the wound that follows. He watches pain pass from his heart to hers, and knows she cannot make sense of it. She never could. She can't understand. It was never too much love before. Not for her.

But then ... Oh, but then. She's older now. She's harder and crueller and more weary, and suddenly he sees it. Not love. Not quite. But hope, maybe. And kindness, so strange against the cruelty. A compassion, that even still is just a little greedy.

"Are you not the Goblin King?" she says, with an echo of challenge, of lost childishness. "Didn't you say once that you could reorder time? Surely you could make a moment last forever, if you wanted it to."

It's anger he feels, in answer to that. A old surge, pain and fury, and underneath it ... something darkly laughing. Something ancient and untouched, that craves only the sensation of her. The sharp prickling of her endless cruelty, the glory of her undiminished strength. He hates her and loves her in equal measure. He always has.

"And would you ask for that?" he sneers, hard and cold and with a flash of teeth, though his hand remains soft against her papered cheek. "Would you wish for it, Sarah, when there's no-one left to wish you back? Would you grant me a moment eternal, and never be free from me again?"

For a second, she doesn't answer. She looks up at him instead. There's such a sad love, deep in her eyes. A pale, peridot jewel, in the stark, faded whiteness of her face. He looks down at her, steel sheathed in fading silver, and his heart breaks all over again. It shatters, immortal and immutable, never to heal again.

"Jareth," she says, and she reaches now to touch his cheek in turn. She traces it, cups her worn hand around it, and then ... she leans up, on her toes, and she kisses him. A soft mouth, dry and cold, and tasting strangely of magic. His eyes flutter closed, letting her do as she will, and he thinks for a second that she smells like peaches. He moves his hands to her waist. It's thinner, the hip-bones prominent. He clings to it for sanity's sake.

"... Sarah," he breathes, when she lets him go. "Make a wish, Sarah. Please."

"Dance with me, Goblin King," she says, her hands resting now on his shoulders, her eyes shining like the paste jewels in her silver hair. He looks at her, all but undone. "Dance with me one last time. And this time ... this time make it last forever."

Sensation sheers. The world tastes of peaches and of glass, a moment cupped in the palm of infinity. It's a wish. He tastes it. He doesn't know if it's his or if it's hers, but it's there. The magic answers it, as it always has. The magic looks at her, this old woman in a young girl's clothes, diamonds in her silver hair and skies in her peridot eyes, and the magic answers _yes_.

And with his hands around her hips, and her kiss still tingling on his lips, so does he.


End file.
